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The American painter smothers her paintings in heavy layers of viscous pigment. Her first proper London show is a messy, exuberant celebration of her medium, but significant themes are smuggled through if you can scratch your way towards them.

Schutz's Approach

Schutz’s approach – earning her acclaim as one of the most important painters of her generation – is all about surface, brush strokes, colour and materiality. It’s painting for painters, truly advanced art-nerd stuff. Should you enjoy immersing yourself in coats of color and shading, there’s plenty to keep you going for a long time. But it’s Schutz’s grotesque, dreamlike, animated, symbolic visuals that really makes the artworks resonate.

Initial Exhibition Pieces

These pieces in the first gallery are full of giant-headed cyclopses and roaring mobs. One piece shows a collection of forms trudges mindlessly towards something off canvas, waving hands and leaving a trail of trash in their wake. In another features a person receiving a large disguise in some bizarre ceremony in front of a crowd of unattractive followers. It’s not hard to interpret these as political, as commentary on America’s condition, on how society is divided and furious, and mob mentality is transforming all to rubbish.

The Kiss by the artist.

Shift in Focus

In the second exhibition area, Schutz seems to redirect attention to the leaders and elites, rather than the masses that support them. Shadowy figures stuff their mouths with fruit and meat in a sombre dining room; a cardinal and a green-clad man recline in gilded seats – whereas in other works a pair console each other in a scene strewn with dead bodies, and a woman, maybe Schutz herself, lies unclothed, forlorn and powerless in bed.

Inspirations and References

This is ultradense, thickly layered stuff, covered in allusions. You’ll find the ethereal dream-like signs of Odilon Redon, the fleshy pink cartoonishness of Philip Guston, the festive bizarre elements of a Belgian artist, the big-headed weirdness of a contemporary artist. She includes nods on the history of painting, numerous references to mainstream media (It seems certain that one painting is a portrait of a cartoon character from an animated series). You could spend hours identifying all the bits of Cézanne and David with which she’s littered the artworks.

A Model by Dana Schutz.

Meaning and Stories

Art this complex, complex and allegorical invites to analysis. I feel as if one is tested on the symbolism of a Renaissance masterpiece but, for my money, there are two relatively clear themes: the ruling class, and the crowds that they provoke.

Controversy and Impact

And Schutz should know about that. Back in 2017, her painting Open Casket – a semi-abstracted depiction of the body of Emmett Till, a black teenager who was murdered by racist perpetrators in a southern state in the mid-20th century – caused untold controversy when it was shown at the Whitney Biennial. Critics charged her of exploiting black death for her own gain. An activist picketed the work each day, and others demanded it to be destroyed. A white artist depicting – arguably with great sympathy – a scene of African-American suffering was the biggest story of the biennial. It was the peak of the recent culture wars, a period that saw people turning on each other even if they were on the identical team. In retrospect, in a world more divided, less nuanced and more hostile than ever, it seems almost charming that people had the time to get angry at this emotional, mournful painting.

Legacy and Current Work

This might have ended her professional life, and Schutz probably wants to move on. But all her subsequent work since exists in its shadow. She inevitably came out of that ordeal a changed artist. But what hasn’t changed is her exceptional skill, how she still engages in brilliant, sickly, thick and highly topical painting at the top tier.